单项选择题

The young people who talk of the village as being "dead" are talking nothing but nonsense, as in their hearts they must surely know.
No, the village is not dead. There is more life in it now than there ever was. But it seems that "Village life" is dead. Gone for ever. (5) It began to decline (衰落) about a hundred years ago, when many girls left home to go into service in town many miles away, and men also left home in increasing number in search of work, and home was where work was. There are still a number of people alive today who can remember what "village life" meant in the early years of the present century. It meant knowing and being known by everybody else in the village. It meant finding your entertainment in the village of within walking distance of it. It meant housewives tied to the home all day and every day. It meant going to bed early to save lamp-oil and coal.
Then came the First World War and the Second World War. After each war, new ideas, new attitudes, new trades and occupations were revealed to villagers. The long-established order of society was no longer taken for granted. Electricity and the motorcar were steadily operating to make "village life" and "town life" almost alike. Now with the highly developed science and technology and high-level social welfare for all, there is no point whatever in talking any longer about "village life. "It is just life, and that a better life.
Finally, if we have any doubts about the future, or about the many changes, which we have seen in our lives, we have only to look in at the school playground any morning; or see the children as they walk homeward in little groups. Obviously these children are better fed, better clothed, better educated, healthier, prettier and happier than any generation of children that ever before walked the village street.
It was______that "village life" began to take a sharp turn.

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